1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to health and exercise equipment, and more particularly to computer networked systems including health or exercise equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Good health is a fundamental requirement for a happy and long life. A multi-billion dollar health and fitness industry has grown to help individuals meet this requirement. For example, there are a great many gymnasiums which provide facilities and equipment for aerobic and musculature development, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of weight loss and diet centers and programs. The goals of these many programs typically include weight loss and/or maintenance, the improvement of aerobic fitness, improved circulation, increased strength, and body building or shaping.
There are several problems encountered with the use of gymnasiums, fitness centers, and diet centers. For one, they tend to be fairly expensive due to the need to maintain the facilities, pay rent and payroll, buy equipment, etc. In addition, these centers tend to be inconvenient in that they require a special trip to the center by individuals wishing to use their facilities. Both the price and the inconvenience tend to discourage use of these centers over time, allowing the individuals to lose incentive and drop out of their fitness or diet program.
A partial solution to this problem is home exercise and health equipment. Again, a large industry has arisen to provide exercise and health equipment for the home. This equipment tends to be more of the aerobic type, e.g. stationary bicycles, rowing machines, “step” machines, etc., although weight lifting apparatus, sometimes referred to as “resistance trainers,” are also widely used in the home. These types of home exercise and health equipment increasingly use sophisticated electronics, such as microprocessors, to monitor the level of exercise and to provide exercise programs for the user.
Unfortunately, even well designed home exercise and health equipment often fall into disuse over time. This is because individuals, even in their own home, often lack the incentive to exercise when there are other, more enjoyable, activities available. Also, since there is typically not the camaraderie often found in a health club, diet center, etc., it is easier for users, as individuals, to discontinue their exercise or diet program.
Personal trainers have been used both at fitness clubs and in the home. Personal trainers are individuals who usually have a fitness training background and who typically provide personal training services to an individual customers. Personal trainers can be very effective in that they provide personal motivation and feedback to an individual in the exercise program, and thus often foster a more effective and longer-lasting exercise program. The downside of personal trainers is, particularly in the home setting, their relatively high cost. It is not unusual for a personal trainer to charge hundreds of dollars per month for their services. Therefore, while these personal trainers are very effective, they tend to be used by only a small percentage of the population.
It is also desirable to make exercise more of a group experience. It is well established that people are more likely to exercise in a group setting than they are on their own. With stationary exercise equipment this, in the past, could only be accomplished by physically locating the exercise apparatus near to each other, e.g. in a health club setting. With mobile exercise equipment, the exercisers would have to group together, such as assembling a group for bicycle ride. In either case, the ability to share a group exercise experience required users to physically get together. Also, such group exercise experiences were typically limited to same-type exercise equipment. That is, bicycle riders rode with bicycle riders, swimmers swam with swimmers, etc.
Even the individual and group experiences within a gymnasium or health club can be somewhat lacking. The exercise equipment are typically stand-alone, without allowing for the gathering of exercise session parameters, interactivity, remote communications, etc. It would be desirable to have such experiences expanded with enhanced capabilities as well.